Bob Langston, an advanced practice nurse with Mercy Clinic Primary Care — Hope Campus in Fort Smith, Arkansas, knits caps to give away to patients and others who visit the clinic.
Some clinic patients who are homeless will have a little extra warmth this winter, thanks to the efforts of an advanced practice nurse at a Mercy facility in western Arkansas.
Bob Langston knits hats in his free time and gives them away at Mercy Clinic Primary Care — Hope Campus in Fort Smith. Roughly half of the clinic's patients are homeless. The outpatient site is adjacent to the Riverview HOPE Campus homeless shelter.
Langston, who has worked at Mercy for 35 years and at the Hope clinic for three of them, took up knitting around 2009 when he was confined to his home with swine flu. He learned the skill to pass the time — he says he gets antsy when he's bored — and quickly began growing a large collection of handmade beanie hats.
At first, he gave them to his sons and their friends. But after transferring to the clinic, he decided to start bringing the hats to work to give to patients.
"It started out as a silly thing to do, but it has taken on a life of its own," says Langston.
Patients can select a hat from the collection. Many of the patients of the clinic are clients of the adjacent shelter for people experiencing homelessness.
Some of his colleagues created a display of his hats with a sign inviting anyone to take one. Many of the patients who accept them are clients of the homeless shelter.
Langston estimates it takes about four hours to make each hat. He expects to make and give away about six dozen this winter.
Mercy located a clinic at the HOPE Campus to provide improved access to outpatient care to the clients of that center, though people do not have to be shelter clients to access care at the clinic. The HOPE shelter includes a dormitory, men's and women's showers, kitchen, cafeteria, barbershop and other facilities. It provides housing access, skills training, dog kennels for clients' pets and other services.
Langston says he enjoys working on the Hope campus. "I've worked a lot of places (within Mercy) but this one is the most intimate — you really get to know people," he says. "Our clinic engenders warmth and acceptance."
He says because people making use of the shelter trust the clinic and feel safe coming there, they keep their follow-up appointments. Normally, it can be difficult to maintain continuity of care with patients who are homeless, notes Langston. Continuity of care is particularly important with the patients this clinic serves, because many of them have complex, chronic illnesses.
Langston says recipients express gratitude for the hats. He enjoys seeing patients around the HOPE campus wearing them, and says it was fun one year to see a patient wearing a hat he made with the team colors of the Kansas City Chiefs, right around Super Bowl time.
His colleagues recognized his generosity with a Justice Award at a recognition event that Mercy Fort Smith holds each year. Kay McCarley, executive director of operations for Mercy Fort Smith primary care says, "It's a great thing for our community to just meet their needs and take care of our people. I just think it's really cool."
Langston laughs that as a person who has lived a life of adventure — including being a professional skydiver who has parachuted into festivities at football stadiums — he never thought he'd become known for knitting caps. But he says it has been fun to see his hobby bring about so much goodwill.
"It came as a surprise to me, but the hats have been really popular," he says. "It's actually gotten a little bit hard to keep up with demand."